ProfessionalSummary

👋Hi, my name is Surapheal (Rapheal) Belay! I am a highly skilled Information Security and IT professional with over a decade of consulting experience in diverse industries, including telecommunications, finance, government, and healthcare. Proven expertise in security compliance, system assessments, and risk management, with a track record of working with clients to ensure adherence to NIST 800-53 security controls, performance of third-party risk assessments, CIS Critical Security Controls assessments, and improvement of security posture with compliance with ISO 27001. Adept at collaborating with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to ensure successful project delivery, improve security postures and mitigate risks by identifying vulnerabilities and ensuring organizational adherence to industry best practices. Strong communicator with the ability to translate complex security requirements into actionable solutions, and a dedicated team player with a passion for volunteer work in community programs.

Notable achievements include:

      ** Performed comprehensive Security Capability Maturity Assessments to evaluate the client's security posture with their policies and procedures in alignment with ISO 27001 and NIST 800-53, identifying key strengths and areas for improvement and delivered a gap assessment report and a roadmap remediation plan.

      ** Developed a NIST 800-18 System Security Plan for a government agency’s PeopleSoft system, ensuring compliance with NIST 800-53 security controls to support pension and retirement planning.

      ** Conducted a CIS Critical Security Controls assessment for a vaccine management application during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring robust security measures prior to the application's go-live launch.

A few years ago, I gained an interest in cloud computing after performing a cloud security assessment in a Microsoft Azure environment against cloud reference architecture. My focus was to evaluate the platform’s current state, identifying risk findings, and present opportunities to enhance Data Privacy & Protection and Cyber Defense capabilities.

I loved the fact that I have access to the Azure platform and can learn hands-on. I am actively pursuing a career in cloud engineering, focusing on security and/or identity & access management. While I’m looking and applying for roles, I created this branding site to highlight my experience and my blog site to document my progress learning in cloud engineering. Additionally, I’m taking Cloud Engineer Bootcamp (www.cloudengineeracademy.io/) to guide me through the process of what I need to learn to land a role.

I hold the CompTIA Security+ certification and the following Azure certifications: